1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to thermal management. More specifically, the present invention relates to dynamic thermal management of integrated circuits within a computer system.
2. Background Information
The continued trend in integrated circuit (IC) technology is to increase operating frequencies, data transfer rates, and the average number of transistors per IC, while decreasing IC package sizes. Unfortunately, as IC performance levels increase and package sizes decrease, the power density of the ICs increase resulting in higher operating temperatures within each IC. If such operating temperatures are not controlled or managed, the ICs may reach or exceed critical temperature thresholds causing damage and even operational failure to the ICs.
Since system integrators may utilize a variety of ICs within a variety of chassis environments, the resulting thermal characteristics and associated cooling requirements for each system may vary greatly from one assembled system to another. Conventionally, the cooling requirements and associated performance limitations for each system were not determined independently given the specific thermal characteristics of the system. Rather, the cooling requirements and associated performance limitations were determined based upon a least optimal thermal environment (or “lowest common denominator” system). Accordingly, ICs located within thermally efficient environments that were capable of operating at higher frequencies without overheating, were penalized by having performance limits set artificially low based upon less thermally efficient system environments. By artificially setting performance limits low, valuable bandwidth and/or processing power is wasted.